Cleric

Contents

(c) 2011 Wizards of the Coast

The cleric is a member of a religious order, but he is no mere priest. While he may not have as much fighting skill as warriors and their ilk, he is far from a noncombatant. The clerics of JediMUD, however, adheret to a strict religious belief that forbids them from wielding edged weapons such as swords. Most of the cleric's power lies in his faith in his deity, who grants him spells which do everything from healing his allies to smiting down his foes with holy flames. The primary statistic for a cleric is WISDOM.

Having a high wisdom will help to increase the effectiveness of his or her spells. Having a high STRENGTH and CONSTITUTION are also definite plusses for a cleric. A cleric can be of any alignment.

As stated in the 1st Edition Player's Handbook, "This class of character bears a certain resemblance to religious orders of knighthood in medieval times." These orders (as detailed in the 2E PHB) included the "Teutonic Knights, the Knights Templars, and Hospitalers. These orders combined military and religious training with a code of protection and service." From its earliest days, the concept for the cleric cemented fairly quickly—a class that served to heal others but could still fight effectively on its own, cast spells thanks to the direct bestowment by their deities, and turn undead.

The cleric's abilities derived from their relationship with their god. When it came to acquiring spells, for example, 1st and 2nd level spells were gained from a cleric's education, training, and experience; 3rd, 4th, and 5th level spells through the aid of supernatural servants of their deity; and 6th and 7th level spells through direct communication from the deity itself. This provided fairly rich roleplaying potential, as gaining spells (and favor) depended upon the satisfaction of the deity—in essence, as interpreted by the DM. A cleric who displeased his deity through his actions or behavior could not depend on receiving spells. Alternatively (and for any character), the 1E DMG suggested a minuscule chance that a deity would directly intervene if beseeched for help by a faithful character.

Naturally, the divine nature of clerics put them in direct opposition with necrotic undead, allowing them to turn any number of these foul creatures (literally forcing them to turn away and retreat from the cleric) or even shatter them into dust if the difference in their levels was great enough. The initial list, ranked in terms of difficulty, included skeletons, zombies, ghouls, shadows, wights, ghasts, wraiths, mummies, specters, vampires, ghosts, liches, as well as some creatures of the lower planes (night hags, minor demons, lesser devils, and mezzodaemons). Alternatively, evil clerics could also turn paladins (clerics of opposing alignments could not turn one another, but they could attempt to counter one another's turning effects).

Like all classes, the cleric can increase his skills by using the PRACTICE command.

The Cleric Player Class provides a flexibility in game play style that serves both beginner and expert alike. As a self-healing class with a decent amount of HP, a cleric is often considered his own tank, and can survive solo in most any zone except for those rated the very highest in difficulty.

Veteran clerics are among the best players in the game (along with remort class Bards and Rangers), as they are expected to take notice of elite mob procs and design group strategies for xp (experience) and eq (equipment) runs.

You'll find that clerical spells fall into four basic categories: buffs (those spells that increase the offensive might of a group's tank or improve his or her armor class), debuffs (those spells that hinder a mobile), offensive spells and healing spells.

For example, using a combination of the blindness debuff and the armor and stone skin buffs, a cleric can decrease a tank's ac by -90 (which is directly related to the mob's THAC0, for you AD&D devotees), which breaks down as follows: -30 for the stone skin, -30 for the armor and -30 for the blindness on the mob.

Clerics can cast powerful offensive spells, especially those of exceptional WISDOM. Spells such as call lightning (when weather permits), dispel evil or good, (effective against mobs of opposite alignment), earthquake (an area spell, useful for leveling), and flamestrike, which, if cast with a WISDOM of 25, can do up to 950 HP of damage in a single round (should the mob fail its saving throw.)

The rings, stones, sandals, shield, wings and staves provide a +7 int and +7 wis bonus to a multi-remort player (with at least 7 remorts). The light, necklaces, mask, leggings, gloves and bracelets provide a 56% mana regen bonus. Additionally, a 25 wisdom provides an additional 18% mana regen bonus, and a 25 intelligence provides another 18%, for a total of 80% mana regen from equipment and stats. The character in question is older than the max age for age regen bonus, which is 30%. This character is a 10 remort cleric who, as it happens, opted three times to gain a 5% mana regen remort bonuses into his stats (15%). The total of the entire package? 61% (eq) + 30% (age) + 36% (wis/int) + 15% (remort bonus) = 142% mana regen.

142% mana regen means that you have 142% chance of attaining the max amount of regen recapture per heartbeat for your class. Let's say a cleric can recapture a max of 6 mana per heartbeat (there are 72 heartbeats per tick) while full (food) and full (water) and sleeping. A 50% mana regen cleric has a 50/50 chance of achieving 6 mana points per heart beat under these conditions. Over a statistically significant sampling period, a 50% mana regen cleric should be able to gain 210 mana per tick.

However, if you are hungry (food) or thirsty (water) or plagued, your ability to regen will be impacted. If you are plagued, your regen will show a negative number. If you are famished, you will not regen at all. Carry around extra food and water!

Clerics are sought after to serve as companions for remort class activites, especially for bards when they are running their colleges. A cleric will often sit in the first floor room of the Bardic College, awaiting instructions for summons, heals, glows, and other buffs/debuffs required for bards to solo the various College challenges.

For those clerics with less that 150mR, a vending machine tee-shirt with 10%mR is provided, free-of-charge. (Sadly it's !rent and -50 moves).

Rangers like to pair up with a cleric when they are skinning (usually occurring on the ranger's third remort to support a 21 DEX, 21 INT and 21 WIS.) A cleric will typically buff the killing machine (for example the Obi-Wan Statue in Midgaard) and provide periodic rejuvenates for the ranger as he or she skins corpses.